News from the Library of Congress

August 15, 2002

22 State Centers for the Book to Host Events and Programs to Promote the National Book Festival

Between late August and the first weekend in October, 22 state affiliates of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress will host events and programs that will promote the National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress. The promotional efforts are funded by grants to the Center for the Book from AT&T and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The second National Book Festival will feature 70 award-winning authors, illustrators, and storytellers and will be held on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol on October 12; once again, it will be hosted by Laura Bush. Last year, the Festival attracted 30,000 enthusiastic visitors.

State center for the book events include storytelling programs presented in seven Arkansas bookstores throughout September; "On the Writer’s Bookshelf," an Oct. 1 celebration of Georgia writers and the books that inspired them; programs at the Montana Book Festival in Missoula on Sept. 27-28; and the designation on Oct. 2 of the Newark Public Library as the New Jersey Center for the Book’s first "Literary Landmark." A state-by-state listing of activities follows.

National Book Festival posters, bookmarks and other promotional material will be distributed statewide by each of the 22 state centers for the book.

"Each state center develops its own projects to promote books, reading, literacy, and libraries," said John Y. Cole, Director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. "Both the state centers and the National Book Festival will benefit from this effort, thanks to the generosity of AT&T and the Carnegie Corporation of New York."

National Book Festival Promotion Events in 22 States

ARKANSAS

The Arkansas Center for the Book will hold a series of storytelling programs organized by the Arkansas Center and presented at six major Arkansas bookstores on four Saturdays in September (Sept. 7, 14, 21, 28). The bookstores are in Little Rock (Wordsworth Books), Blytheville (That Bookstore in Blytheville), Conway (That Bookstore at Mountebanq Place), Fayetteville (Barnes & Noble), Harrison (Books Galore), and El Dorado (Jefferson Street Books). Each participating bookstore will display and distribute National Book Festival posters and bookmarks. Using both professional and amateur Arkansas storytellers, each store also will adapt its program to its own clientele and circumstances, e.g., pure storytelling, panel discussions, and presentations in connection with a city-wide arts festival. Program partners include August House Publishers in Little Rock and 250 public libraries throughout Arkansas.

The California Center for the Book will promote the National Book Festival at previously-scheduled high profile events in seven public libraries in connection with the launch of a new and unprecedented statewide reading initiative, California Stories: Reading "The Grapes of Wrath." The libraries and program dates are: Fresno County Library (Sept. 29); Newport Beach Public Library (Sept. 19); Sacramento Public Library (Oct. 6); San Diego Public Library (Oct. 8); San Francisco Public Library (Oct. 5); Santa Monica Public Library (Oct. 5); and Shasta County Library (Oct. 9). Participating sites will display National Book Festival materials in the weeks preceding the festival. The initiative already has support from the California Council for the Humanities, the California State Library, independent bookstores and branches of Borders Books and Barnes & Noble throughout the state, California’s governor and first lady, and mayors of most of the participating cities. In addition, the California Center for the Book will promote the National Book Festival on its popular Web site.

The Connecticut Center for the Book will begin its promotion of the National Book Festival on Sept. 20 at two events: its high profile One Book for Greater Hartford regional event at the Connecticut State Library and its Festival of Caribbean Literature (Sept. 20-21) at the Hartford Public Library. Edwidge Danticat, author of "Breath, Eyes, Memory," the book selected for greater Hartford, will make a presentation and sign her book at the Connecticut State Library, where National Book Festival promotional materials will be displayed. On Sept. 21, Danticut will visit Hartford Public Library’s Caribbean Book Fair, a key component in the Festival of Caribbean Literature’s promotion of the National Book Festival. This festival, a complete program of authors reading from their works, storytellers, filmmakers, craftspeople, and artists supported by Connecticut publishers and booksellers, will draw participants from the large Caribbean and other ethnic communities throughout Connecticut—particularly in Hartford, Bridgeport, and Stamford. National Book Festival materials also will be distributed to project partners, including more than a dozen public libraries across the state, the University of Connecticut, and the state’s Immigration and Refugee Service. The Summer issue of the Connecticut Center for the Book’s newsletter "Readings" (mailed to 40 affiliates and 1500 individuals and businesses) will promote the National Book Festival as well.

The Florida Center for the Book will conduct a statewide publicity campaign in cooperation with the State Library of Florida, the state’s 87 public library systems, and local bookstores, newspapers, media, and other organizations. The campaign will begin on Sept. 6 and continue through the spring of 2003 in order to cover 10 major Florida book festivals, including the Miami Bookfair International (November 2002), the Festival of Reading in St. Petersburg (November 2002), and the Key West Literary Seminar (Jan. 9-12, 2003). The National Book Festival poster and bookmark will be distributed throughout the state. It will jointly feature the National Book Festival and 10 major Florida book fairs. In addition, the Florida Center for the Book will develop a model project for possible future use by others at book festivals across the nation. To promote advance interest in the National Book Festival, the center will survey National Book Festival authors, posing the question, "What book made the biggest difference in your life and what difference did it make?" Their answers and photos will be posted on the Florida Center for the Book’s Web site. Other celebrities will be added for Florida, including Florida’s book festival authors. The survey also will be taken via a paper questionnaire at the Florida table in the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival. For added convenience, the Web form and paper questionnaire will be available in Spanish. The Florida Web site will feature links to the National Book Festival Web site and the national Center for the Book’s Web site, which maintains a current listing of book festivals across the country and the world.

The Georgia Center for the Book will host "On the Writer’s Bookshelf," a celebration of Georgia writers and their books that inspired them. The event, which will take place on Oct. 1, will be held in Atlanta at the Margaret Mitchell House, which recently was designated as Georgia’s first literary landmark by the Georgia Center for the Book and Friends of Libraries U.S.A. Borders Books and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, co-sponsors of the event, are assisting with promotion. The stellar panel of Georgia authors, who will read and discuss their favorite books, is being drawn from the Georgia Center for the Book’s "Georgia Top 25 Reading List"–which features books set in Georgia or written by a resident or former resident. Georgia resident Carmen Agra Deedy, who participated as a storyteller in the 2001 National Book Festival and is returning in 2002 as an award-winning children’s book author, will kick off the event. Other authors include Georgia’s poet laureate David Bottoms, National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene, and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who presented a talk about his book "Walking with the Wind" at the Library of Congress on Feb. 2, 1999. Additionally the Georgia Center for the Book will promote the National Book Festival by distributing e-mail notices, posters, and bookmarks through the 58 regional libraries of the Georgia Public Library System.

The Maine Center for the Book is holding two programs in Augusta and Portland on September 12. Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole will speak about the National Book Festival at both events: an afternoon reception honoring the Maine Humanities Council/Maine Center for the Book scholars at the James G. Blaine House in Augusta, and a public poetry reading that evening in Portland by Wesley McNair, one of Maine’s best known living poets. Publicity for these events and the National Book Festival will be distributed through the Maine chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the Maine State Library, the Maine Library Association and local libraries.

The Maryland Center for the Book will promote the National Book Festival throughout Maryland’s 27 public library systems through the design, production, and distribution of promotional materials such as posters, bookmarks, and buttons and at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sept. 27-29. The slogan for the initiative will be "The National Book Festival: It’s Right Next Door." The Director of the Baltimore Book Festival supports this initiative and is going to develop other ways to support the National Book Festival. The print campaign will focus on community newspapers throughout Maryland, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post. Coupons distributed throughout the campaign will be redeemed for promotional items at the Maryland table in the Pavilion of the States during the National Book Festival.

The Massachusetts Center for the Book will expand the reach and promotion of the second annual Massachusetts Book Awards, which takes place in Worcester on Oct. 3. Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole will be a speaker at the ceremony and talk about the National Book Festival. Each of the four winners of the 2002 Massachusetts Award will be invited to spend a minimum of half an hour at the Massachusetts table in the Pavilion of the States on Oct. 12 at the National Festival. Moreover, each of the partner organizations participating in the "Great Ideas for Promoting Reading" pavilion on Oct. 12 that has a Massachusetts chapter or office will be invited to participate in the Massachusetts Book Awards ceremony on Oct. 3. Finally, the publicity campaign for the Massachusetts awards will include publicity for the National Book Festival.

The Michigan Center for the Book will kick off a program of author readings at the Library of Michigan (Sept. 12) that also will launch the Michigan Center’s "Celebrate Michigan Authors" project. Celebrate Michigan Authors is a three-part statewide project that offers many opportunities for promoting the National Book Festival. The parts are: a Michigan Authors & Illustrators database, a collaboration with the Library of Michigan and the Michigan Association of Media in Education; a series of local author readings that will include National Book Festival displays at selected public libraries throughout the state; and a statewide publicity campaign to stimulate public interest in Michigan authors and the importance of books and reading to the citizens of Michigan. Publicizing the National Book Festival will become part of this campaign.

The Minnesota Center for the Book will create a bookstore-based People’s Choice award that will determine the favorite authors of Minnesotans. The balloting will take place during September in bookstores throughout the state. Each site will be provided with 250 ballots for a total of 25,000 votes. All publicity materials provided to the stores will highlight both the Minnesota People’s Choice Award and the National Book Festival. The results will be announced simultaneously on Oct. 12 at the Minnesota Center for the Book (with local television coverage) and at the Minnesota table in the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival.

The Missouri Center for the Book will sponsor a statewide poetry contest (a poem on the topic "Why I Read") from July 29 to Aug. 30, a statewide print publicity campaign, and the development of a flyer, suitable for reproduction, that will promote the National Book Festival and its Web site. The Missouri Center for the Book will send the winner of the poetry contest and a guest to the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. where the winner–properly presented by the table "host"–will greet other Missourians in the Pavilion of the States. The contest judges will select a number of outstanding poems for publication in a high-quality brochure, "Missourians Write About Reading," that will be distributed in the Pavilion of the States. The statewide publicity campaign will put a Missouri emphasis on the National Book Festival. It will include distribution of National Book Festival materials at three events: the Columbia Festival of Arts (Sept. 28-29); the annual conference of the Missouri Census Data Center (Sept. 5-6); and the Missouri State Library’s Summer Library Institute (August 13-16). National Book Festival information will be posted on the Missouri Center for the Book’s Web site.

The Montana Center for the Book will include information about the National Book Festival at the Montana Book Festival in Missoula on Sept. 27-28. Several programs at the Montana Festival will be organized around the National Festival theme, "Celebrating America’s Stories." The third annual Montana Book Festival, a project of the Montana Humanities Committee/Montana Center for the Book, will be held in historic downtown Missoula. Statewide publicity for the Montana Festival will include publicity for the National Book Festival and the Celebrating America’s Stories programs. The programs themselves will include a workshop on preserving family histories and stories; "Writer’s Choice," featuring some of the West’s best-loved authors reading from their favorite works by others, thus sharing their love of America’s stories; and storytelling for both children and adults.

The Nebraska Center for the Book will hold its first Nebraska Book Festival on Sept. 13- 14 at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island. The festival’s theme, "A Sense of Time, A Sense of Place," underscores the state’s historical past: "A sense of who we are as Americans, as Nebraskans, as a community, as a member of a family." Information about the National Book Festival will be distributed to more than 400 participating students and teachers on Student Day (Sept. 13) and highlighted at all Nebraska Book Festival program venues on both Sept. 13 and Sept. 14 and through activities preceding the festival. National Book Festival posters and bookmarks will be distributed and remarks about the National Book Festival will be highlighted at the celebratory Nebraska Book Awards dinner on Sept. 13. The Stuhr Museum will put information about the National Book Festival in their Visitor’s Center as soon as it is available (last year 40,000 people visited the museum during the summer and fall) and link the museum’s Web site to the National Book Festival’s Web site. It also will promote the National Book Festival during the Central Nebraska Ethnic Festival hosted by the museum on July 26-28, which celebrates the cultures of more than 30 countries and different ethnic groups.

The Nevada Center for the Book will highlight the National Book Festival across the state of Nevada over a six-week period beginning Sept. 1, with frequent e-mail communication to Nevada libraries and other book-oriented organizations, including a pointer to the National Book Festival Web site and distribution of National Book Festival graphics at key locations. National Book Festival promotional materials will be distributed at main Nevada events and programs including the Great Basin Book Festival (Sept. 17-21), the Read Washoe Read ("If all the community read one book") Project (Sept.-Oct.), and the Nevada Library Association Annual Conference, (Oct. 3-5).

The New Jersey Center for the Book will draw attention to the National Book Festival at a major event in Newark on Oct. 2 at which the New Jersey Center will designate the Newark Public Library as its first state literary landmark. As a featured speaker, Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole will describe the forthcoming National Book Festival. Three important authors who appreciate the role of the Newark Public Library in their own development will be present: Amy Hill Hearth, Walter Dean Myers (who participated in the 2001 National Book Festival), and Philip Roth, whose papers are at the Library of Congress. The National Book Festival will be included in the statewide publicity for the event.

The New York Center for the Book will include information about the National Book Festival at its premiere event on Sept. 19 at Columbia University in New York City. The featured speaker/reader will be a well-known New York writer who has wide popular appeal. The writer’s presentation will be preceded by a brief description of the National Book Festival by Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole. The newly-named statewide board of advisors for the New York Center for the Book–a distinguished list of librarians, booksellers, publishers, and authors from New York City and throughout the state–will hold its first meeting in conjunction with the event. Publicity for the National Book Festival will be part of the publicity for the event. All of the major New York publishing firms currently supporting the National Book Festival will receive special invitations.

The Oklahoma Center for the Book will offer a series of events in September and October that honor author Ralph Ellison, an Oklahoma native, and the 50th anniversary of his "Invisible Man," one the most important works in American literature. National Book Festival promotional materials will be distributed beginning in September with the launch (Sept. 12) of the statewide community reading project One Book-One State: "Invisible Man." It will continue with publicity at the statewide conference of school librarians (Sept. 12-13); a panel discussion on Sept. 28 in Tulsa at the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers Celebration of Books that features Professor John Callahan of Lewis and Clark University, who also spoke about Ellison at the Library of Congress; Callahan’s subsequent visits to Oklahoma City high schools; and the Oct. 2 unveiling of the state’s newest literary landmark, the Metropolitan Library System’s Ralph Ellison Library in Oklahoma City. Finally, on Oct. 12 at the Oklahoma table in the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival, the executive director of the Oklahoma Center for the Book will present a tabletop display about Ellison and materials describing how Oklahoma is honoring one of its greatest authors.

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book will conduct a statewide media campaign coordinated by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book in partnership with the Pennsylvania State Library, the Pennsylvania Library Association, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association, and the Pennsylvania State University Libraries. Each of these organizations will publicize the National Book Festival through their own publications and activities, displaying the poster and distributing the bookmark at appropriate events. WPSX-TV, Penn State’s public broadcasting station, will publicize the National Book Festival in connection with a new project being developed with the Pennsylvania Center for the Book about books that have helped shape the state and its citizens. The project will be part of WPSX’s Emmy award-winning "What’s in the News" television program, which is seen throughout central Pennsylvania and syndicated for viewing in 30 states. The Pennsylvania Center will use its "What Pennsylvanians Read and Why" project to develop a statewide book club and statewide bibliography of what Pennsylvanians have read, and might want to read. A promotional partnership will also be offered to all of Pennsylvania’s newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The project will be highlighted and promoted at the Pennsylvania table in the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival on Oct. 12.

The South Dakota Center for the Book will offer a series of presentations by three authors in several South Dakota towns in late August and early September. National Book Festival promotional materials will be distributed at all of the presentations. The overall theme of the program is "Maintaining Democracy in an Unstable World." Presidential scholar Robert P.Watson, the first speaker, will appear on Aug. 24 at the Spearfish Public Library in the northern Black Hills. He will present another talk on Aug. 25, preceding the evening lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore, then visit three other South Dakota towns including Mitchell, where he will join the other two speakers for a joint program at the Corn Palace. The other speakers are Ambassador George McGovern and sociologist Rosemarie Skaine, author of "The Women of Afghanistan Under the Taliban," who will have visited three other South Dakota communities before the program in Mitchell. Extensive media coverage is being planned by the South Dakota Humanities Council, the home of the South Dakota Center for the Book – the national Center’s 47th and newest affiliate. For example, the National Book Festival will be a featured topic on a new program on South Dakota Public Radio premiering on August 30: "The South Dakota Center for the Book’s Food for Thought."

A Latino Authors Tour for Texas, a joint project of the Texas Book Festival and the Texas Center for the Book, will be held in honor of the National Book Festival and the Texas Book Festival. Four prominent authors–Rene Saldana, Jr., Diana Lopez, Viola Canales, David Rice–will speak during September (Hispanic Heritage Month in Texas) in three different parts of the state: Dallas, Austin, and either McAllen or Edinburgh in the heavily Latino Rio Grande Valley region close to Mexico. The Texas Book Festival will publish a booklet with excerpts from the featured authors’ works. Printed publicity displays about the National Book Festival and oral announcements about the coming National and Texas (November 15-16) book festivals will be part of each event.

The Virginia Center for the Book will include the National Book Festival simultaneously with publicity for the September 21 Annual Library of Virginia Awards Celebration Honoring Virginia Authors & Friends. To be held at the Library of Virginia in Richmond, the awards event is sponsored by the Virginia Center for the Book, the Library of Virginia and the Library of Virginia Foundation. This year the literary celebration is being expanded to include additional programming across the state. The publicity infrastructure is already in place; it includes separate mailings to the state’s 350 public libraries and all its bookstores, college and university English departments, and book groups. In addition, the National Book Festival will be prominently mentioned in the formal remarks made on Sept. 21 by the host, Nolan T. Yelich, and presenters of the award; the National Book Festival’s bookmark will be placed into the programs distributed at the celebration and mailed to all nominees for the literary awards; and the Virginia Center for the Book will sponsor the participation of the recipients of poetry awards at the Virginia table in the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival.

The Wisconsin Center for the Book will include the National Book Festival in publicity on four statewide CBS radio programs from August-October and as part of its project to update "Wisconsin’s Community of the Book," which highlights Wisconsin organizations that promote books, reading, literacy, and libraries throughout Wisconsin. Both projects will publicize Wisconsin’s presence in the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival on October 12, and invite anyone with a Wisconsin connection to "drop by" to learn about the "community of the book" project and other Wisconsin Center for the Book projects that promote Wisconsin’s authors and book culture. The radio features will be live telephone interviews on "BookMarks & Art," a monthly program on CBS affiliate WFHR that is co-hosted by a member of the Wisconsin Center for the Book’s advisory board. Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole will be interviewed about the National Book Festival on the Sept. 19 program.